“How so?”
“He kept trying to get me to go home. I kept telling him, ‘Dude, there’s a reason I left.’ He had a hard time understanding that I was better off on my own, even if certain things were more difficult.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. I didn’t want to ask why he was better off on his own, homeless, because I probably already knew. I could see what Edan meant when he called Grayson a rich asshole. It wasn’t really an insult, just a way to describe a man who had never considered how bad life could get.
I certainly understood jumping into a dangerous situation just to get away from home. That made perfect sense to me.
A creak sounded from outside, and we both tensed.
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk,” I barely whispered.
“Agreed,” Edan breathed.
Silence settled between us.
25
Edan checked on the scrabs every hour, until just after midnight, when he carefully shut the door and said, “They’re not moving. And most of them are underground.”
“How well can you see them?”
“It’s nearly a full moon, so somewhat well. But I don’t think we should wait for daylight.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so either.” Scrabs, like us, couldn’t see as well at night. We had a much better chance of sneaking away in the darkness.
“And I don’t think we should run. They can feel vibrations in the ground, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what they think.”
“So let’s walk. Carefully.”
“OK.”
He shifted, and his hair brushed against my forehead. Some part of his face bumped my cheek.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s fine.”
The light of his phone filled the closet, and he started typing something. “I’m leaving Grayson a note on my phone. Just in case.” He held it out to me. “Want to write a note to anyone? Who knows if it’ll survive an attack, but you never know.”
I looked down at the phone. Who did I have to say goodbye to? Laurence, maybe, but I didn’t have anything left to say to him that hadn’t already been said. Julian? Maybe I could tell him thank you, for helping me, for making me feel less lonely, but any way I turned the words over in my brain sounded cheesy. We’d barely started dating. A goodbye note would probably just make him feel weird.
I shook my head.
Edan slipped the phone back into his pocket. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
My muscles ached in protest as I stood. I grabbed my machete from where it was wedged by the wall and slipped it into the harness on my back.
We took a few careful steps away from the closet. It was dark, but I could just barely make out the shapes of the older furniture, of items scattered on the floor.
I followed Edan to the back door and carefully, silently, stepped outside. We walked slowly around the house and into the open. There was nothing but grass and a few trees around us. The road wasn’t visible from this distance.
But I could see the scrabs.
There were about a dozen of them, piled together near holes in the ground like sleeping puppies. Six-foot puppies with sharp claws and cannibalistic instincts.
They were silent in sleep, which was terrifying. No snoring to alert people nearby of their presence.
I kept my eyes on them as I fell into step beside Edan. We moved as fast as we could without making much noise, slowly putting space between us and the scrabs. I couldn’t see it yet, but we had to be getting closer to the road.
The ground gave way beneath my feet suddenly. I gasped, looking down in time to see my boot falling through a mess of twigs and leaves.
Edan’s hand grabbed for mine, but I couldn’t hold on. I reached desperately for something to stop my fall, but my feet hit the ground and I collapsed with a grunt. Thank god. Whatever hole I’d just fallen into wasn’t that deep.
I stood slowly, testing my ankles to make sure I hadn’t twisted them. Moonlight filtered in through the remaining branches above me, and I squinted at my surroundings.
I barely stopped myself from screaming.
Scrabs. Three fully grown ones, and at least two dozen tiny scrabs around them. Hairless, wrinkled, hideous baby scrabs. A nest.
A couple of the baby scrabs closest to me were stirring, shaking off the leaves I’d covered them in when I fell. The adult scrab next to them sighed. Its eyelids fluttered.
I took a tiny step back, pressing my back to the side of the hole. My heart pounded frantically in my chest. Was it dark enough in the shadows that the scrab couldn’t see me?
The scrab’s eyes opened.
I dug my fingers into the dirt behind me. Please don’t see me. Please don’t see me.
It blinked once and then rolled over. Something shiny and silver on its neck glinted in the moonlight as it moved, like it had gotten a piece of metal lodged there. The baby scrabs huddled in closer.
I let out a slow breath. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or vomit. Both, maybe.
I looked up to see Edan on his stomach, one arm reaching down into the hole. He opened and closed his fingers insistently, like he wanted me to hurry up.
I took a careful step toward him. A clump of dirt fell from the wall as I moved. A rock skittered across the ground.
I stopped, my eyes snapping to the scrabs. They were still motionless.
I reached up and wrapped my fingers around Edan’s arm. There was no way he was going to be able to pull me up unless I helped, so I dug the fingers of my other hand into the dirt and tried to find a spot to hook my boot into the earth.
Something sharp pierced the ankle that was still on the ground, and I gasped, letting go of Edan’s hand. I looked down.
One of the baby scrabs
